TV's Most Interesting Sex Scene On Sunday WASN'T Game of Thrones

As we pointed out two weeks ago, there’s a lot of sex and a lot of talking about sex going on in HBO’s dramedy Insecure. Ex sex, awkward sex, pretty amazing sex, open marriage sex and even a blowjob with a not-so-happy ending in the final scene of the latest episode. The sex talk in the most recent episode referenced the cultural touchstone Becky.

In the scene, Issa and a group of her friends are talking about blowjobs while shopping at Sexplosions, a sex-positive conference. There, they find a booth where there are blowjob tutorials and friend Tiffany boasts about her oral skills, saying she could teach the class. When her friends push back, revealing they are not as enthused about it, Tiffany says “I just don’t understand black women and their hangups about oral sex.” (Tiffany herself is black, though lightskinned.)

Issa says men see black women as disposable after BJs. One friend blames hangups on the black church. Issa puts Tiffany’s adoration of the act back on the white people she grew up around. “You went to those all-white-girl private schools, so you’re brainwashed Becky,” she says.

“You mean Becky with the good ring?” Tiffany responds. While it would be easy to think that the mention was a reconjuring of the “Becky With The Good Hair” Beyonce mentioned in her track “Sorry” from her 2016 album Lemonade, this nod goes further back than that.

There’s a lot of things that you can say “might not be about race,” but for the black community, the name Becky generally is. Think of Sir Mix A Lot’s 1992 hit “Baby Got Back,” where two Valley Girls, one named Becky, gossip about black culture and black bodies. Think even just to the current show Empire, where actress Gabourey Sidibe has to explain why her name is Becky on the series. “What type of black girl named Becky?” another character asks. Apparently, one that has a white mom.

But turning Becky from just a white girl to one linked to a bit of “sloppy toppy” can be most neatly laid at the feet of Plies. In 2009 he released the first single off his fourth album Goon Affiliated, itself named “Becky.” “Can Miss Becky please raise her head, I need some of that good head right now, I need that Becky,” he says as the intro to the track. Over the next three minutes, the artist takes the name Becky, which had been just a stand-in for “basic white girls everywhere” and marries it to a pervading notion amongst black men that white women are more willing to and enthusiastic about giving blowjobs than black women. The music video features white women prominently. The result is a new phrase, “gimme that Becky,” meaning oral sex. Insecure even nods to this with the “Becky With The Good Ring,” line as Plies closes out his song with “Becky, Becky marry me.” It’s this notion, this school of thought, that Issa is touching on when she points out that Tiffany went to school with and grew up around white girls.

To be clear, the idea is rife with problems. Iggy Azalea surfaced her issue with it on behalf of white women when Beyoncé invoked Becky. But also, the idea cuts both ways, painting black women as sexually prudish. Vulture hit back on that point, saying the conversation itself was “dated,” and that “it’s also troubling that black women are framed as sexual prudes when compared to white women.” Those arguments have merit. As does show creator Issa Lawrence’s experience that some black women in her life have hangups about oral sex.

So what? Though it’s composed of different players, the issue at its root echoes “big dick expectations” problems. Painting all white women as being good at or enamored with blowjobs than black women is a disservice to white women. Pushing forth the idea that all black women are against head and what’s more, that it’s a reason black men engage in interracial relationships is troubling. Sadly, Insecure seemed to do this.